NY announces boost for hops research, wine tasting

New York is giving sales tax exemptions for winery tastings and funding for hops and malting barley research.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday $350,000 will be dedicated to research on key brewing ingredients to help specialists understand different varieties that work best for the state’s agriculture.

A portion of the funding will go to hops plot research at the Geneva Experiment Station at Cornell University. Researchers are already evaluating roughly 30 varieties of hops for the state’s craft brewing industry. They are also working with pest management techniques to figure out how to combat threats to hops crops.